


anytime you feel the pain (hey jude) refrain

by remy (iamremy)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Healing, Hurt Sam Winchester, Post Season 11, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 10:48:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7264963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamremy/pseuds/remy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam meets Mary as he's recovering from his gunshot wound.</p>
            </blockquote>





	anytime you feel the pain (hey jude) refrain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WinchesterPooja (chronic_potterphile)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronic_potterphile/gifts).



> I've been meaning to write this ever since I saw the S11 finale, but couldn't make time due to finals. Then, a couple days ago, my lovely wifey Pooja prompted me to write Mary and Dean looking after Sam, and I managed to get this down. Our plan was for Sam to have been hit in the spleen, and recovering from the subsequent splenectomy. I intended to mention that in the fic, but that didn't happen, though I retained the part about him being hit in the side. So yeah, for the purposes of this fic, let's all just assume he got hit in the side and lost his spleen and is recovering from major surgery. I'm also assuming that Dean somehow saved Sam's ass from the British hunter/MoL lady, so there's that.
> 
> I hope you like it, Pooja <3<3<3 a lot of what I'd originally intended (and grilled you about) didn't turn up in the fic, but that's just the way it is with stories - sometimes they write themselves. The fluff is there though, and I hope that's okay :)
> 
> Okay, I'm gonna shut up now.
> 
> PS: title from Hey Jude by The Beatles because I'm shit at titles and could think of nothing else except for this overused, overtired fandom cliche. My bad.

Sam remembers getting shot, the rampaging-rhino impact of the bullet hitting him in the side, and the searing pain, and… then nothing. Objectively he knows what must have happened – he collapsed, body going into shock, and then being found and taken to the hospital, but he doesn’t remember any of it.

He doesn’t really remember the hospital stay either, other than flashes of consciousness here and there. Mostly he’d just slept, because the pain was too much to handle while awake. A week passed by and it felt like a month, and he doesn’t remember anything much except for the agony.

And callused fingers going through his hair, a low, gravelly voice somewhere above him saying words he couldn’t understand, but that’s okay, they were soothing to him anyway, like they have always been for as long as he can remember.

There’s something else, too, something it takes him a moment to comprehend. A soft touch on his forehead and cheeks and a lovely voice singing a song he would know anywhere, even though he’s never heard it in her voice before, only his brother’s and his father’s.

_Hey Jude, don’t make it bad  
Take a sad song and make it better…_

The only thing, he remembers thinking, that could explain this must be the drugs. He was hallucinating, he had to be. But that was okay, too. He could live with this sweet voice, the gentle touch on his skin that he didn’t even know he missed because he’d never had it. He could live with it, for as long as he had it.

* * *

The flashes of consciousness expand into minutes and then an hour or two, and he opens his eyes to find himself not in his own room but in Dean’s, settled on the bed with plenty of memory foam pillows and around three comforters. He wonders if he’s awake because he’s feeling better, or because three comforters is three too many and he’s sweating under all of them.

“Hey,” says Dean, and Sam turns his head to find him sitting in a chair by the bed, his feet up on the edge of the mattress, settled in dents made by the weight of them. Sam has a vague, disconnected thought about him ruining his memory foam mattress by putting in two extra divots in it, but then figures that having Sam in it has ruined it anyway, and so he doesn’t comment.

“How are you feeling?” Dean asks, taking his feet off the bed and leaning forward. “Do you want water?” He holds out a glass of water with a straw in it that Sam assumes had been sitting on his bedside table.

Sam takes a few grateful sips, and then settles back against the thousand or so pillows. Then he remembers he’s sweaty as hell, and manages to rasp out, “I’m _dying_.”

Dean’s eyebrows shoot almost into his hairline.

“Of heat,” clarifies Sam, and makes to push the comforters off himself. Snorting loudly to himself, Dean gets them off him, and Sam sighs happily as cool air hits his lower body.

“Does it hurt anywhere?” inquires Dean as he folds the comforters and places them at the foot of the bed. “Are you hungry?”

“I’m fine, Mom,” Sam says, grinning tiredly. He expects Dean to snort again and retort, but instead Dean just freezes, staring at him, until Sam begins to fidget uncomfortably.

“Dude,” he mutters. “What?”

Instead of answering, Dean calls out, “He’s awake!”

“Dude, who are you talking to?” asks Sam. “Is anyone else here? Is it Cas?”

“Nah, just wait and see,” Dean says, and to Sam’s surprise, he’s grinning widely, ear to ear, like Christmas come early. There’s a brightness to his eyes and the upturn of his mouth that Sam hasn’t seen in a long, long time. Dean looks ten years younger.

“Dean, what—” he begins, but then Mary enters the room and Sam feels like the wind has been knocked out of him.

“Sammy, you’re awake!” she says, and she sounds so full of joy and love that it hurts. Sam’s first thought is that she can’t be real, she _can’t_ , she burned up on the ceiling of his room when he was a baby and they spent two decades trying to avenge her; she can’t be real, she’s a hallucination like the one he had in the hospital when he imagined her soothing his pain and singing to him.

She _can’t_ be real.

Except Dean is looking at her like she’s the sun, and if it’s a hallucination then he shouldn’t be able to see her, right? And if she’s – if she’s something else, something not human, then Dean wouldn’t have let her near him, he would have –

What? He would have what?

How can it be her?

Sam is well-aware that he’s staring at her, his mouth open in shock, even as she patiently waits for him to acknowledge her so that she can come near him. He can tell she wants to; it’s in the way she’s standing just out of his reach, her entire body tensed so that she can rush to him the moment she knows it’s okay.

She looks radiant, glowing, dressed in jeans and a white button up, blond hair tumbling down to her back in soft waves and curls, her eyes – Dean’s eyes – crinkled in a smile as she looks at him, and he can see tears shining in them. He’s vaguely aware that his own eyes are wet, too – and he doesn’t want to look away from her, just in case she isn’t real; he wants to drink in the sight of her and her lovely smile and her long, tapered fingers that he knows he inherited because Dean had told him that, and her eyes the exact same shape and color as Dean’s, and—

He can’t, he can’t, he can’t, if she’s not real then he can’t do this, he can’t let himself hope, he can’t let himself imagine a life where he isn’t motherless—

“Hey, Sam, hey.” Dean’s voice is in his ear, his hand heavy and comforting on Sam’s back, and Sam realizes he’s gasping for breath, wheezing almost, and there are tears running down his face. “She’s real, Sammy, I swear it,” Dean says quietly, sitting down next to Sam and moving his hand up to squeeze the back of Sam’s neck. “I checked.”

“How—”

“Amara,” Dean says before Sam can finish. “This is her idea of paying me back for getting her and Chuck to play happy families again, apparently. I don’t fully understand it either, but hey, I’m not going to complain.” He looks up again at Mary, and smiles softly.

Sam follows his gaze, and his breath catches in his throat again when he sees Mary – his _mother_ – looking at them both with so much love in her eyes it seems unreal. There are tears on her cheeks but she’s smiling, and without even thinking about what he’s doing Sam reaches out for her.

She’s by his side in an instant, wrapping her arms around him and holding him, and she smells like lavender and lilies and for a few moments Sam just takes it in, the scent of her, the _realness_ — and then he’s crying into her neck, small keening sounds of longing and need, and she’s running her fingers through his hair, and he can hear her trying to soothe him, and in the background Dean has got a hand on Sam’s back too, his thumb rubbing circles into his skin through his shirt.

* * *

When Sam comes to again, it’s his mother sitting next to him. He opens his eyes to find her smiling down at him, her fingers stroking his hair away from his forehead. “Hey,” she says softly. “You okay?”

He nods, not trusting himself to speak. He is hyperaware of her touch, the infinite tenderness, the _love_.

“Do you need anything?” she asks, her other hand reaching to take his.

He shakes his head, but squeezes her fingers a little. She gets the unspoken message loud and clear, and smiles just a little wider. “All right, I’ll stay. By the way,” she adds, “this is a far more welcoming reaction than I expected, especially as Dean tried to shoot me.”

Sam’s eyes widen, and then he’s choking back laughter, unable to help himself. That is such a Dean thing to do, to shoot first and ask questions later, and Sam has to wonder how Mary convinced him she’s real and not something else masquerading as their mother.

So he asks. “How did – how did you convince him not to kill you?”

She laughs. “Honey, I was a hunter too, you know. I got the gun out of his hand before I even tried talking.”

“How did that go?” he asks, grinning, looking at his mother and never wanting to look away. She’s so _bright_.

“Well, I’m here, aren’t I?” she says with a shrug and a laugh. She leans in. “Don’t tell him I told you this, but he totally shrieked when I ran into him in the kitchen yesterday.”

“He did not!” exclaims Sam in disbelief.

She nods, her eyes shining with humor. “Did, too.”

Sam laughs, the sound coming from somewhere deep within him, even though it hurts his side. He only stops when the sharp pain becomes too much, and when he winces his mother is immediately leaning over him, concern written all over her face. “What is it, sweetheart?”

Maybe it’s the term of endearment she throws out so casually, like she’s been calling him that all his life; maybe it’s the fact that she _hasn’t_ , that no one other than Jess has called him that ever; maybe it’s the fact that he never had a mother but has one now. Whatever it is, it causes Sam’s eyes to fill up again, his fingers tightening around his mother’s, and he says, completely aware of how much he sounds like a child but not caring, “It _hurts_.”

“I’ll get you something,” she says, making to stand, but he stops her by not letting go of her hand and shaking his head at her.

“Please,” he whispers. “Please don’t go.”

“Oh, honey,” she says, sounding like her heart is breaking for him. “Of course I won’t.” She sits back down and calls for Dean, while Sam curls up on his uninjured side and closes his eyes, focusing on nothing but his mother’s hand in his and her voice murmuring soft, soothing words.

* * *

This time when he wakes up, both Dean and his mother are there, on each side of his bed. He sits up, his side hurting him considerably less than it did before, and when Mary sees him she puts down the book she’s reading. “Hey, honey,” she says, and she smiles, and it makes Sam a little bit afraid that he’ll get used to her smile, that he’ll start taking it for granted and not appreciating it as much.

“Water?” offers Dean, holding out a glass. Sam accepts it, sipping at it before handing it back, and then settles himself more comfortably against the pillows.

“How long have I been in here?” he asks, his voice raspy from disuse.

“In bed? A couple of days,” Dean tells him. “You peed the bed.”

“I didn’t,” Sam says at once, aghast at the idea.

“You didn’t,” Mary confirms at once, reaching out to swat Dean upside the head. Dean scowls, and the sight makes Sam laugh. This time his side doesn’t hurt as much.

“How’s the pain?” asks Mary.

“Better,” he tells her.

“You ready to get out of bed?” asks Dean. “Walk around a bit, shake some of the rust loose, y’know. Get your strength back a little.”

Sam considers, mentally checking himself over, and then nods. “I think so? I mean, I’m ready to give it a try.”

“All right.” Dean stands, helping Sam out of bed, anchoring himself so that when Sam uses him as support to stand, he doesn’t stagger. “You okay? We can do this another time if you want.”

“Nah, I’m good,” Sam answers, still leaning heavily on Dean. “Just – just give me a moment.”

“Take all the time you need, honey,” Mary tells him, taking his free arm so she can help.

They manage to make it to the war room, slowly but steadily, and halfway there Sam shrugs off all support and starts walking on his own, each step labored but determined. Dean and Mary both watch him with identical expressions of mixed pride and worry, both of them just a few steps behind him so that they’re not hovering, but are also prepared to catch him should he fall.

“You know, an injury like that on someone else would have taken _ages_ to get better,” Mary says quietly to Dean, her eyes on Sam in front of her.

“Well, what can you say?” says Dean with a shrug. “It’s _Sammy_ ,” he adds, like that explains everything.

Mary smiles, like it does. “Yeah,” she says, and her voice is full of warmth and affection. “That’s my boy.”

* * *

Sam tires himself out by the time they get to the war room, but that’s all right. He’s walked far more than either his brother or his mother expected him to, and that means he’s allowed rest for as long as he needs it. So he settles down on a sofa that Dean had put there a couple months ago (for when they’re pulling all-nighters and need a comfortable place to take power naps), his head in Mary’s lap and feet against Dean on the other end of the couch, toes tucked under Dean’s thighs. There’s a light sheen of sweat on his skin and he’s breathing a little heavily, but otherwise he seems fine.

Mary runs her fingers through his hair, occasionally stroking his forehead as he does so. He closes his eyes, settling into the warmth of her touch, his entire body relaxing as he lets himself be coddled by his mother. He’s lived his entire life without this, and now that he has it he can’t get enough of it. It’s not that he’s never known unconditional love – he has, thanks to Dean, and their dad, and Jess – it’s just that he’s never known a _mother’s_ love. Before, when he missed his mother, it was a sort of abstract feeling, a fantasy of what it would be like to have a mom to wake him up every morning for school and to cut off the crusts on his PB&Js and to listen to him talk about his problems and to sing them away, to offer as many hugs and kisses as he wants until he feels all right again. Now? Now it’s not such a faraway concept anymore. Now it’s _real_ , and it hits him that now that he knows what it _really_ feels like, he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he were to lose it. He doesn’t know how he could survive it.

“Please,” he murmurs, his eyes still closed, his voice wet and pleading, “Mom, please don’t go. Please don’t leave me. Us. Please don’t leave us again.” He feels Dean tense, and knows that it’s going to hurt Dean just as much as it’ll hurt him, if she’s gone. Maybe even more.

“Honey, I won’t,” Mary says gently, stroking his cheek. “I promise I’m not going anywhere, darling. Now that I’m here I won’t let anything take my boys away from me. I _promise_ , sweetheart.”

Sam reaches, groping around for a moment till he finds one of her hands. He takes it in his and holds it tightly, not saying anything, not needing to. She’s his mother. She’ll understand everything he wants to say.

There are a few moments of silence, in which he knows Dean is looking at Mary and she is looking back at him, communicating silently, probably about him, and he wonders what it was like for them while he was in the hospital. He wonders what they talked about, those long hours that he was unconscious for. He knows it must have been about him, and maybe about Dad, and about everything that he and Dean did in all of the years that she was gone. He wishes he could have participated, and then vows to himself to talk to her as often as he can, whenever he can. She’s here, and she has no plans of going anywhere, and he’s going to spend as much time as he can with her. He’s going to get to know his mother, dammit, he’s going to have a mom again.

Then Dean lays his hand, heavy and comforting and familiar, on his ankle, and his mother strokes his cheek again with her free hand, and he lets himself give in to sleep waiting just around the corner, warm and safe with his mom and his brother, with his _family_ , everything he’ll ever need.

**Author's Note:**

> So... thoughts? Feedback? Anything? Let me know in the comments!
> 
> [my tumblr.](http://chesterbennington.co.vu/)
> 
> Love,  
> Remy x


End file.
